Identity in Communities and Networks
_____________________________________________
How Identity can be deceived in the Virtual Community
Abstract
Shaping your own identity has become so common through the online world, with never-ending opportunities to manipulate our individuality and to create this ideal version of ourselves has never been so easy. Through so many different social media platforms such as Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and Snapchat you can now seperate the good from the bad and expose only the successful parts of your day to your followers to construct this happy, healthy and successful persona that we all dream of. This paper will explore the theme “identity in Communities and Networks”, which focuses on the place of identity in communities and social networking. This paper observes an extremely popular micro-celebrity named Steph Claire-Smith, who is known to the public for her influential opinions on maintaining a healthy lifestyle. The paper will investigate the many techniques used by Stephanie and will inform you on how you can form this idealized persona we assume these women live every day. With the online world covering more opportunities than ever before, the digital tools that help influence these viewers/fans are strategically contributing to gaina reaction from the online public sphere. In saying this the identity these people create through social media is not always a true indication of their reality, but they still attract the attention of these millions of followers no matter what.
Key Words: Instagram, Identity, Influencer, Individuality, Social Media.
Introduction
Wouldn’t it be crazy if there was an app that allowed you to instantly post pictures and videos to the online world, so you can create this ‘ideal’ persona?
Well with social networking apps such as Instagram you can… Reflecting on the online domain we understand that now days it consists of digital platforms where people can expose themselves through social media in any way they wish. A major platform that stands out the most is ‘Instagram’, Instagram was created back in 2010 and since then has upheld over 300 million users a month (Ferwerda, Schedl & Tkalcic, 2016). The networking app functions as a site for sharing photos and videos to your followers so they can engage with others and build this amazing visual representation of yourselves, which sometimes reflects a different truth in the virtual world. In saying this we are regularly manipulated by micro- celebrity identities because we do not usually get an insight to their identity in the offline world. Social media’s influence on identity will be examined through establishing how Instagram is used as a representation of identity and how micro-celebrities use these sites as a voice to express their so-called knowledge and interests with their followers. Additionally, the goal of this paper is to recognize how identity is established in an online community and to examine the consequences this may have on people. Lastly the paper will clarify on how these online personalities have a huge influence on such a large audience and the visual tools Instagram offers its users, this will help portray the impacts of how this creates the confusion of identity being deceived in the Virtual Community.
Digital identity VS Offline identity
Identity plays a key role in virtual communities. Communication being mainly activity, by knowing the identity of those who you may communicate with is recommended for understanding them as a person and interpreting and responding to the message they deliver (Donath,1999). Having the freedom of expressing yourself in different ways such as pictures, videos, stories and comments, helps create a space where you can construct your online identity through social media that is not possible to present one’s self in the offline world (Mashcheroni, Vincent & Jimenez, 2015). The main idea behind these social networking sites is to ‘communicate’ with one another, however this has not only helped us interpret and understand another person’s individuality, but also helped them shape their own identity as mentioned above, an example of how social media is prominent for this is through the growth of micro-celebrities. We live in this world where you wake up and the first thing you do is check your phone and scroll through Instagram, constantly being surrounded by all these micro-celebrities gives us no option but to compare ourselves to these bloggers. Every day on social media people present such strong characteristics through their profiles that help them achieve fame based on strategic self- presentation, the profile being created is the desired image one wants to be represented by.
Comparing both digital and offline identity, we understand that digital identity is something that fluctuates from reality as Donath states “in the physical world there is an inherent unity to the self, for the body provides a compelling and convenient definition of identity” (Donath, 1999, p.29). This suggests in the real world it is harder to be blinded by people’s perceptions and how they portray themselves, however in the online community it is a lot easier for someone to generate lots of different personalities that could physically not represent them at all. Micro- celebrities are known for expressing themselves through their social media accounts to their huge followings, it is easy to do this in the digital world because they have this platform available where they can voice their opinions on the world and reach out to people on certain things they believe in. As Svantesson mentioned “internet users may have different identities for different purposes” (Savantesson,2011). As said above one physical person may use a particular digital identity or persona in relation to Twitter for example to voice their opinions about the world or Instagram to share their day to day life and possibly Facebook to connect with family and friends. Savantesson also states “Where this approach is accepted, identity can perhaps be viewed as an external manifestation making the person distinguishable from other persons” (Savantesson,2011). Furthermore, identity can be compared to related concepts including character and personality, Savantesson describes identity as something external and personality is something internal.
Successful Online social media influences
There’s no questions that you can alter your identity through the online world, social networking helps fade that line between the online world and reality. Through the use of these digital features this allows people to choose how they wish to expose themselves in the digital realm. Individuals implementing their identity is not a radical concept (Pearson,2009), often referred to as ‘performance’ it is seen as the movement of social interaction as people construct identity performance fitting their environment can reflect far from the truth. The online world is a space that allows people to create ideal self-profiles that display this persona they invent which attracts these large audiences from all around the world. These platforms help people create these relationships with people they may never have had the opportunity to do if it was face-to-face, but because of the material they publish it creates bonds and connections with other people giving you the feeling of knowing these accounts personally (pearson,2009). There are many micro-celebrities on Instagram with strong personas that are surrounded by a huge online community, examining star Steph Claire-Smith, well known for her social media account and promoting her businesses through them.
Steph Claire Smith is a female influencer on Instagram with 1.4 Million followers and 50,000 subscribers on YouTube. Steph is a great positive role model to her followers by providing them with a deep insight into her daily routine and life, she promotes her happy, healthy lifestyle as well as one of her many businesses ‘Keep it Cleaner’ through her social media. Steph created this massive audience through displaying her identity as a real woman with also a successful modeling career and an ambassador of well established brands known across the globe. She shares videos on her Instagram stories everyday connecting with her following on a deeper level to make them feel as though they are part of a community. Many people that follow Steph are well educated about her ‘Keep it Cleaner’ business she runs with her friend, a program that helps people in particular young girls achieve their fitness goals in the healthiest and natural way possible just like Steph does. Steph states she uses Instagram today in the most naturalist way she can, whereas a few years ago she would use apps such as ‘Face Tune’ to remove spots and other imperfections, as well as reshape their bodies and fill in bald patches (Pavlovska,2019). Furthermore, Steph helps people realize that influencers on social media are not always sharing the bad things that could be going wrong in their life. ‘Anyone with large following as an influencer has put themselves in a position where people will be influenced by their posts, so why not remind everyone that what young girls see on Instagram isn’t always real life?’ Steph continued, ‘I feel the responsibility to be a good role model to young girls.’ Demonstrating how identity can be deceived in the virtual community. Steph lastly states, ‘weall put up some sort of shield before sharing things with others, and that’s okay but I think anyone with a certain amount of following should remember it’s important to be real and relatable… and show that life isn’t always as perfectly put together as we post it to be on our feeds.’ (Pavlovska,2019).
Figure 1:
Reality Through Micro – Celebrities
Growing up today for teens and pre-teens, the online and mobile social networking community has become an essential part of managing one’s identity (Boyd,2007). It is inevitable that there are conflicting pressures that come within social media and who is to say what is considered appropriate or inappropriate to share on your personal accounts. We discovered in offline contexts of communication, identity management and self-presentation are not humbly an individual’s success, but somewhat a social process.
We are aware that Instagram is filled with micro- celebrities with numerus followings that create themselves a community but in the offline world they feel alone, this gives a deceiving perception to the people we follow because we are constantly comparing ourselves to their life and are jealous of things they have but how do we know it’s all true?
With websites such as ‘Idigic’ you can now so easily purchase your followers or buy likes and comments with as little of $1 because of websites like these how do we know social media world is all genuine?
Relating back to influencer Steph Clair Smith there are defiantly positive ways to use online success, however there is still the underlying characteristics of how these platforms allow only the sharpened edited versions of peoples posts that manipulate their identify.
Conclusion
After examining social media platform Instagram, social networks offer an opportunity for identity management that is more noticeable than in the offline community. The digital environment is where people can achieve to portray themselves in any way they request without having to physically interact with the people they are manipulating there identify too. It is proven that after examining how identity can be deceived in the virtual community just how easy it is to do so without even realizing we are doing it. What can seem like reality to your followers we now understand how one can so easily present themselves in the online world strategically how they desire. With a clear indication that micro-celebrities have become a major reflection of creating their own identities through these platforms supporters can now stop comparing themselves on a level where they are not happy with their own offline personas.
References
Boyd, d. (2007). Why youth (heart) social network sites: The role of networked publics in teenage social life. In D. Buckingham (Ed.), Youth, Identity and Digital Media (pp. 119-142). Cambridge: MIT Press.
Donath, J. (1999). Identity and Deception in the Virtual Community. In P. Kollock, & M. A. Smith (Eds.), Communities in Cyberspace (pp. 29-59). New York: Routledge
Ferwerda, B., Schedl, M., & Tkalčič, M. (2016). Using instagram picture features to predict users’ personality.
Followers, B. (2019). iDigic -Buy Instagram Followers -100% Real & Instant Followers. Retrieved from https://www.idigic.net/buy-instagram-followers/
Mascheroni, G., Vincent, J., & Jimenez, E. (2015). “Girls are addicted to likes so they post semi-naked selfies”: Peer mediation, normativity and the construction of identity online. Cyberpsychology: Journal of Psychosocial Research on Cyberspace, 9(1).
PAVLOVSKA, A. (2019). Instagram model Steph Claire Smith: ‘Why I stopped using Facetune’. Retrieved from https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-6591837/Instagram-model-Steph-Claire-Smith-stopped-using-Facetune.html
Pearson, E. (2009). All the World Wide Web’s a stage: The performance of identity in online social networks. First Monday, 14(3).
Steph Smith (@stephclairesmith) • Instagram photos and videos. (2019). Retrieved from https://www.instagram.com/stephclairesmith/?hl=en
Svantesson, D. (2011). The significance and protection of identity in the online world. Computer Law & Security Review, 27(1), 1-3. doi: 10.1016/j.clsr.2010.11.008
Hey TDelucia!
This is an interesting topic that you have.
I like how you mention that the first thing most people do in the morning when they wake up is to check on their phone and go to social media, particularly Instagram. Personally, I agree and could relate to this.
It’s as if that’s a norm nowadays, to check on your social media and who interact with you, view, like and/or repost your posts. It also feels that your morning won’t be complete before you check on other’s people post and what have they been doing. We have this, feeling of constantly wanting to see what is going on around us. Do you agree?
Every person lives their own life differently, yes. To judge someone through online environment, I guess it’s hard. We don’t know what is real and what is fake. People might live a very different life than what their online post says about them. It’s just a matter of how they want to present themselves and how they want other to see them as. You don’t know if their lying. This is the world of deception. I guess it’s easier to manipulate others online because we have the time to think it through. We have time to design our lies, what do we want people to see. Why do you think people like to have different identities? What is it that makes them, feel like they should be “someone else.”? Isn’t identity a very important aspect of someone. It’s who defines them, but then they’d rather choose to be someone else.
There are also many occasions where people would post their so called “body goals”, and show the sexy and muscular bodies with abs, or no “fat layers”, but many of the times, it is just a matter of angle of the camera and how skilled they are in photography. But behind the camera, they will also have body curve just like anyone else. However, some people do not realize this, and media have big impact on people’s perspective. There’re many cases where people are too heavily affected with what the media suggests, and that affected their self-esteem. They’ll think that they are not worthy, or not good enough. It makes people envy others. It makes people dislike their own self. Just like you said, they’re being pressured.
For some people though, they realized that they can be deceived through virtual community, but what do you think makes them stay anyways, knowing well that they are being deceived.
Cheers!
Hey TDelphine,
Thanks a lot for your comment on my post! I like your feedback.
I could not agree more with you, I am still not entirely sure why we do feel the need to constantly see what others are doing around us, maybe it’s just a form of distraction! if we are bored, we want to see other peoples success to motivate ourselves… or maybe its to feel involved so you can stay included/up to date in what people are getting up too or new trends going around. I know for me it’s mainly procrastination.
I think people mainly like to create these new identities because of their lack of self-esteem in the offline world if they create this image of themselves they wish to be seen by to the public sphere it gives them a sense of belongingness and confidence.
Hi TDelucia,
Interesting example used with Steph Claire Smith. Based on the quotes you have highlighted, she seems to have become more self-aware in terms of her online identity and acknowledging her responsibilities to her audience. This is represented by how she feels she has to be a role model for younger and possibly impressionable girls, of whom may be insecure of their body image. She encourages her audience to remain fit and active through her business while maintaining an identity that is as authentic as possible for her followers.
This is a stark contrast to some other female Instagram models/fitness models who can potentially unrealistic body expectations through its technical affordances like filters and competition against other models to see who can gain more followers and likes for example.
Here’s a link to my paper if you are interested: https://networkconference.netstudies.org/2019Curtin/2019/05/05/social-media-and-brexit-the-role-of-social-media-in-the-outcome-of-the-uks-eu-referendum/
Hi Syan,
Thanks for your comment on my paper!
You had some very good points.
Hi TDelucia,
No problems. At the end of the day, all these lifestyle/fitness Instagram accounts put together an enhanced, upgraded version of themselves which has helped them gained their following. Even on Smith’s Instagram account, she is still portraying herself in the best light even without the minimal to no adjustments in her posts. Most users are highly unlikely to post images showcasing the opposite (unless it is something serious) and it is up to them in determining they should address their audience over issues like authenticity and honesty.
Hi TDelucia,
I found your paper very interesting to read. I definitely agree in that influencers have some sway over their followers with the identity they present and how this can be detrimental to young users who are now constantly comparing themselves to these ideal self of social media influencers. Its interesting the ways in which SNS can be used to manipulate with one’s identity and while my paper leans more towards encouraging this play of identity online, I never got the chance to further research and read into the more negative aspects of it. Especially when apps such as Face Tune are now easily accessible to us and allow us to fix our imperfections before we post it online. Considering how influencers are more about reinforcing Instagram’s beauty standards and therefore use these apps to promote an ideal self of their identity, this is certainly detrimental in the long run when truly considering how vulnerable young users are to their influences. Its a good thing there are influencers such Steph Claire Smith who try to ground their followers into not being swept up into these impossible online beauty standards hype.
Overall, this paper has been very informative and I definitely enjoyed reading it!
Thanks,
Rachel
Hi RTiongco,
Thanks a lot for your comment, I do agree that there are defiantly two sides to SNS even though my paper looks into Instagram’s more negative aspects, I agree that there are so many great positive things about these networking sites as well!
Thanks again for your response!
Hi TDelucia,
Your paper was a pleasure to read! The quotes from Steph Claire-Smith you provided allowed for an insiders perspective on the influence of micro-celebrities on followers, and how they curate a favourable identity online, one which may not necessarily match their offline one. What do you think some of the motivations behind influencers presenting their best self online is? Do you think it is predominantly because they are aiming to increase their followers or the number of likes they receive? Instagram is currently trialling an update which removes the display of the number of likes a post receives, only allowing the total number to be seen by the poster. Thus, if a micro-celebrity could no longer see the amount of likes another influencer is receiving, do you think they may relax in maintaining the ‘perfect’ identity as there is one less criteria for comparison? As a result, would this have a positive impact on young followers?
Looking forward to your reply,
Thanks,
Devyn
Check out my paper here, if you’d like: https://networkconference.netstudies.org/2019Curtin/2019/05/05/active-now-how-web-2-0-allows-for-the-formation-of-online-communities-capable-of-initiating-change-through-activism/
Hey DRonaldson,
I really enjoyed reading your comment, I think you had some awesome points. I agree I think if Followers, likes, and comments were hidden from the public Instagram would be different. I think people wouldn’t care as much about promoting this ideal life they live, I think people wouldn’t feel the need to blog every step they take in the day. If it was my choice I would go back to when these networking sites didnt take over our everyday lives, but in saying this, blogging is a job for these people and how they make their income.
Thanks
Hi TDelucia,
I really enjoyed reading this paper. I liked how you started with a rhetorical question as it really got me interested into what I was about to read! I really liked how you used Steph Clair Smith as a positive example in the online world, being one of her followers myself I do believe she is really trying to change peoples negative view on micro-influencers. Do you believe that if every influencer was like her, Instagram would be a more positive and trusting environment?
Hey GRobinson,
Thanks for the feedback!
However, I do think that the Social Networking world would be a more positive environment if all influencers were like Steph but in saying that there’s always going to be people comparing her life to theirs but I think that is just how these Social networking sites are in today’s society.
Hi TDelucia,
I found your paper very interesting to read as it was informative and provided exceptional examples to get your point across!
I definitely have found social networking sites have been adapted and misused for people to create their own online personas within the online community. Social media has definitely become a solid platform for people to completely reinvent themselves, differentiating from their offline persona/identity. What are your thoughts on ways social media can become more transparent? I definitely agree with you on influencers like Steph, that encourage a healthy lifestyle in such a positive manner. It truly is refreshing.
Looking forward to hearing back from you 🙂 Taneesha